My Letters about Literature!

Dear James Dashner,

          I really enjoyed your book, The Scorch Trials. It was a very fast read for me because I was so intrigued with the book. The characters in your book really made me think about some of the people in my own life. Your book also made me really think about what the future may be about, and frankly scared me to think that was the way you saw the future. It made me think about so many things that I had never thought about before, and brought out things in me that I did not know I could do.

          I have never been really into reading, so to read this book in less than two days really made me surprise myself. I had made up my mind to devote a day to really read this book and figure out what happens, because sometimes I get lost in so many other things that I don’t make time to read.  It made me realize that when I put my mind to something, I can do it. I think the reason I read it so fast was because I connected to the characters in a way that really made me want to keep reading. Sometimes in our daily lives we really do forget things in the past and really focus on what is happening only in the present. This book helped me realize that when we do that, it just makes things more difficult. Like Thomas, we are sometimes put into situations that we don’t want to be in and we sometimes don’t understand why it is happening to us. The Scorch Trials taught me that even if we don’t understand, we need to just keep trying and don’t give up until we reach the end.  The time that the story took place really made me think too.

          You set your books in the future. This made me really stop and think about what the future could be like. It would be such a scary world to live in if you could get scorched by the sun or killed by cranks with a disease that the whole world was starting to get. I had a lot of sympathy for Thomas because of what he was going through. Many times while I was reading the book I found myself truly scared for many of the main characters. Some of the story also made me really sad for how many lost and dead there were throughout the whole story. Not to mention how it ripped my heart right out of my chest when Theresa fooled Thomas with her dumb love trick.

          When Theresa and Aris made Thomas feel betrayed by making him think that Theresa never really loved him, they made him think it was all just to get him to do something for them. WICKED truly is evil. When they tricked Thomas I didn’t know if it was real, and it truly made me sick for Thomas. It made me want to cry. This book really shook my emotions. It made me realize exactly what I am sensitive to and what I really like in a story. I really connected with Thomas in this book because I felt that sometimes he didn’t know exactly what he was doing being there. He didn’t really know what he was supposed to be doing in life, but he ended up figuring it out. He never once gave up even though a couple of times he thought he didn’t have the strength to keep going. He made it to the end no matter what the cost was. Thomas is truly inspiring for that.

          I really did enjoy the book that you wrote. It inspired me in so many ways. I liked how you developed each of the characters so well. The Scorch Trials inspired me to want to read more and write better.  It affected me more than any other book like this has. It helped me realize things that I had never realized before!  Thank you Mr. Dashner for giving us this book for me to read and thank you for your time.

           

Christmas Traditions

Christmas is one of the happiest times of year for most people. It is a time for celebrating many things.  There is caroling, present giving, baking, decorating, and many other things. For many people, Christmas means traveling. Others it means just staying at home and eating hot chocolate. Christmas time is a time for traditions. We once received a book of Christmas traditions from a friend. There are some traditions that I had never heard of before, and some that us as a family do every year.

                One tradition that I learned that we had never done before was a limbo contest every Christmas eve. This family had come from Cuba and so there traditions were a little different than most of ours. Every Christmas Eve there whole extended family would come out and they would have a massive Christmas parent. It always ended up being sort of a family reunion.

                For others, a normal Christmas tradition involves a family dinner and then a simple get together on Christmas. I know for my family it is a time where we spend a whole day just with each other. We always do activities together on Christmas Eve and then spend all of Christmas enjoying being with our family. There is one tradition that we have in our house that sometimes I don’t particularly like.

                Every Christmas morning we have to wait for everyone to be away until we can go downstairs where the presents are and where we usually spend most of our Christmas. Usually on Christmas morning we are always waiting for our parents to get up. I sometimes think that they try to stay in bed extra-long just to torment us. But for one Christmas, it was my little brother keeping us from going downstairs. We were not allowed to wake him up and he just kept sleeping for a couple hours more. I just remember how frustrating it was at the time. Now we all think of it as a joke!

                Many people that I know are always gone on Christmas. It is there tradition. I can’t remember the last time my grandparents who live in Washington were home for the holidays. They always go somewhere warm. This year it is Florida, last year it was Hawaii. It is very fun to get post cards from them from where ever they are. Sometimes I wish that are family had that tradition!

                December is a time for traditions! There are so many kinds of traditions that we have not even heard of before. Some are very interesting. Traditions are a fun way to get everyone together for the holidays. Traditions is just one of the many things I love about Christmas.

Not Enough Food by 2050? This is a Very Scary Thought

Have you ever wondered what would happen if the food consumption and demand doubled? If you think about how much the world consumes daily and then double that, there is a whole lot of food and when there isn’t enough to go around, that is when you get the problems.

                In something that I read online, it talks about some of the food issues that we might be faced with in the near future. It says by 2050 the food demand will nearly double. This may seem like a really long time, but let me assure you, it’s not.  2050 will happen during our lifetime so it will be something we may want to think and worry about. This article talks about how if we help other countries learn the best ways to farm and to produce food, it will help with this upcoming crisis. In the document it says, “Our analyses show that we can save most of the Earth's remaining ecosystems by helping the poorer nations of the world feed themselves."

                I think that we should really continue to work on finding out more about this subject. It is very important we work as hard as we can to figure out this situation before it really becomes a problem. Can you imagine not having enough food? I know that the thought frightens me enough to want to try and fix it. The research should most definitely be continued to find out more on how we can help our world always have enough food for the people who live here.

               

“Agriculture's greenhouse gas emissions could double by 2050 if current trends in global food production continue; this would be a major problem, since global agriculture already accounts for a third of all greenhouse gas emissions,” says one of the scientists who work on the project. They are just saying that if our current trends don’t stop, we will be in trouble. Saran Twombly, program director in the National Science Foundation, says the following. “Ever increasing global demands for food pit environmental health against human prosperity."  This is really a scary thing to think about. A world with not enough food can mean a world with fewer humans. That is why we should continue the research on this topic.

                The article states that the food demand may double by 2050. This may not sound like a lot right now, but when you think about every person in the whole world and double the food consumption, that is a ton of food! We need to be careful about how we grow crops and how we teach out next generation to not waste. The article helps us understand what is going on in the world today. We need to ensure the future of our globe is a bright one filled with plenty of food for everyone.

                I don’t know how the world will handle a crisis like this one. This is a very scary thought. This is one of the reasons I am posting this on my blog. If we are all informed on what is happening in the world, we will be more willing to help out and make sure that something like not having enough food will never happen.

comma rule test

You may think that ethics means just knowing right from wrong, but people who practice good ethics don’t tolerate things that are wrong. In this ethics module, I learned a lot about ethics and gained a better understanding of what it means. There were three parts to my reading. They are as follows: a question of ethics, ethics check, and last but certainly not least, universal ethics principles. To others, I can explain what I have learned and it can help everyone know just what ethics really means and how it can be applied to our lives.

          The first part was entitled, “A Question of Ethics.”  This section explains the meaning of ethics. It goes on to say that no matter what the context of the decision, ethics is simply a matter of right versus wrong or more right than wrong. You really want to make up your mind right now, so when you are faced with the decision to cheat or do something unethical, you know that you won’t do it. It then asked the question “something might not be against the law, but is it ethical?” This is indeed a very good question to ask ourselves when we are having a hard time making a decision.

The next part was “Ethics Check.” In this part of the article, it listed five things to think about when making an ethical decision. Five things were mentioned, and I liked all of the information. Those five things were the golden rule, the rotary 4-way test, the power of ethical management, the markula program, and the mother test. The tips given, compared to anything else I have ever heard, were very helpful. Have you ever heard the phrase, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you?” I am sure you have, and it goes right alongside with rule number one, the golden rule. Through this part of the article, I learned all the ways to really test what is ethical.

          The third part of the article was called “Universal Ethical Principles.” The small heading for this part is “ethics according to the world’s great philosophers.”  This part, written by four very famous people, tells a lot about what being ethical is all about. I had heard some of the rules before like, “tell the truth no matter what.” But there were others I had never heard before. Rawls says, “When things can’t be equal, fairness means protecting the least advantaged.” This is one I had never read before and it really made me stop and think. At this point, I learned that no matter what the consequence is, you should always tell the truth because it is the right thing to do.

           This article really made me think, and I thought about everything I did in life. It had good pointers on how to look at a situation and decide whether or not it is the right thing to do. Sometimes we know right from wrong, but choose wrong because we are not thinking about the ethical thing to do. I know from now on I can look at a situation and better tell for myself what to do. In my own life, I can apply what I have learned about ethics. There is more than one part to the definition of ethics. How to tell if things are ethical, some wise words from some really smart people on what to do in a sticky situation, and general rules to ethics, are all things I learned. Just tell the truth, even though it might be hard,  and I promise that it will be a lot easier to make ethical decisions!